Through Him, we are given everything we need to live a life for Him and His praise. He died so that we could live with Him forever if we just believe that He is God and the Saviour for all. Let us give thanks to Him this day, for He has died and now risen!

This is crazy! I know it is on a link about conspiracies, but if you look closely it comes from an excerpt from The Expositors Bible Commentary. I’ll just give you a little bit of what it talks about, and let you check out the rest:

Mark 15:15 “So Pilate, wishing to satisfy the crowd, released for them Barabbas, and having scourged Jesus, he delivered him to be crucified.”

The Romans first stripped the victim and tied his hands to a post above his head. The whip (flagellum) was made of several pieces of leather with pieces of bone and lead embedded near the ends. Two men, one on each side of the victim, usually did the flogging. The Jews mercifully limited flogging to a maximum of forty stripes; the Romans had no such limitation. The following is a medical doctor�s description of the physical effects of flogging.

The heavy whip is brought down with full force again and again across Jesus� shoulders, back, and legs. At first the heavy thongs cut through the skin only. Then, as the blows continue, they cut deeper in the subcutaneous tissues, producing first and oozing of blood from the capillaries and veins of the skin, and finally spurting arterial bleeding from vessels in the underlying muscles� Finally the skin of the back is hanging in long ribbons and the entire area is an unrecognizable mass of torn, bleeding tissue. (C. Truman Davis, “The Crucifixion of Jesus. The Passion of Christ from a Medical Point of View,” Arizona Medicine 22, no. 3 [March 1965]: 185) It is not surprising that victims of Roman floggings seldom survived.

Mark 15:20 “And when they mocked him , they stripped him of the purple cloak and put his own clothes on Him. And they led him out to crucify Him.”

At last tiring of their sadism, the soldiers tore the robe from Jesus� back. The fabric had probably stuck to the clots of blood and serum in the wounds. Thus when it was callously ripped off him, it caused excruciating pain, just as when a bandage is carelessly removed. Jesus� own clothes were now put back on him.

Mark 15:24 “And they crucified Him and divided his garments among them, casting lots for them, to decide what each should take.”

Mark simply says, “And they crucified him.” What incredible restraint! Especially when one considers that crucifixion was, as Cicero said, “the cruelest and most hideous punishment possible” (In Verrem 5.54.165). What took place physically is described by Davis (“Crucifixion of Jesus,” pp. 186-187).

Simon is ordered to place the patibulum on the ground and Jesus is quickly thrown backwards with his shoulders against the wood. The legionnaire feels for the depression at the front of the wrist. He drives a heavy, square, wrought-iron nail through the wrist and deep into the wood. Quickly he moves to the other side and repeats the action, being careful not to pull the arms too tightly, but to allow some flexion and movement. The cross is then lifted into place.

It is gruesome to read everything that Jesus went through from the time at Gethsemane to His death on the Cross. The whole read on this link is really incredible, but to only focus on the pain would not be sufficient of what this day was all about. Jesus went through the worst pain ever imaginable, pain that almost everyone will not ever experience, or at least in my lifetime. He did all of this because of His and God’s love for us. It was an incredible event and one that allows those that believe in Christ, as a way to God the Father, to live with Him in Heaven when we pass away from this earth.

Jesus Christ, the gospel, has given us a chance to live with Him in eternity, if we just take a step of faith and believe that He is God and came to save us from our sins. We think of Jesus as a baby boy, and that is what He came to earth as, but His main purpose was living a life for us to follow (knowing that we aren’t perfect and don’t have to be) and dying on the cross to take the punishment of our sins on His shoulders so that we could have a close relationship with Him and God the Father.

Here is a Christmas card that spells the gospel out in a beautiful way.

As we celebrate this season, let us continue to look to Christ for the things that we have around us. Give glory to Christ for His grace and mercy given to us freely, let there be peace for all in the midst of everything that might come our way and let goodwill be given to all men!

Even in difficult times and hardships, Jesus still used a soldier to bring another to Himself. The Christian soldier did go through a ton of hard times, even having flashbacks of killing innocent people. But one thing kept him going, and that was Christ and His word. One of the soldiers that was making fun of him, in the end turned to what that soldier was reading to find out what made that man tick. Christ is good, all the time.

If you want to watch it and have good internet speed, you can click here and watch it!

There are times in life where this question comes up, and for me it seems like it has been coming up more frequently than ever before. A big reason might be the fact that I don’t really have a straight forward view on what Career I would like or in what field of work I would like to be in. Where do you start? Other things are coming at me like a race car driver on the Daytona track, making me flinch and not allowing me to take a step forward, only sideways or backwards. I could go into details, but don’t want to in this fashion, so I will talk more about what I stumbled upon that caught my eye instead of what keeps flying over my head. On Desiring God‘s Blog, I found one entitled Can You Bear Uncertainty? My interest peaked, I wanted to see what this blog had to offer.

We all go through uncertainty at times and for all different kinds of reasons, but knowing God is in control of everything should put us in a state of calmness. I need and want to get to that point, I just need God’s help in doing that because I sure can’t do it on my own.

Jon Bloom takes such a good look at this passage and what is can do for our lives. I always remember reading about Peter jumping at of the boat onto the water as a way of showing his faith in Christ and Christ approving of his faith by letting him stay on top of the water. It was not so much Peter’s own belief, but his belief of who Christ was and what Christ could do if he just let Him take control. We could all learn to study God’s word to truely know how Christ can be there, instead of just living through life hoping that Christ would pick up the “slack” of what we have already done. And Jesus, letting Peter sink slowly to bring him and others back to the realization of how much they were in need of Christ and how much power he has over everything.